Elias Thorne POV
I slammed the car door shut just as a heavy glass bottle shattered against the armored window. The sound was like a gunshot. Outside, a crowd of angry people was shouting and waving signs. They were screaming about the "Viper," the nickname they gave to General Sterling because of his cold, mean ways.
"Drive!" I ordered the man in the front seat.
The black SUV lurched forward, pushing through the crowd. I sat in the back, my heart pounding against my ribs like a trapped bird. My hand instinctively went to the hidden pocket in my jacket where I kept a small, black raven feather. It was a reminder of why I was here. I wasn't here to be a bodyguard. I was here to be a hunter.
But today, my job was to save the life of the person I should hate the most.
"Are they gone?" a small voice asked from the seat next to me.
I turned my head. Sitting there was Claire Sterling. She was the General's only daughter. She looked young, maybe only twenty years old, with big, scared eyes and hair that she kept tucking behind her ears. She wasn't a soldier. She wasn't a traitor. She was just a girl who happened to have a monster for a father.
"They're behind us now," I said. I tried to make my voice sound soft, but it still came out sounding like gravel rubbing together.
"You're new," she said, looking at my face. She didn't look away from my silver scars. Most people did. Most people acted like I was a scary ghost. "The last guy, Miller, was very loud. He liked to brag about his medals. You don't talk much, do you, Mr. Thorne?"
"Talking gets people distracted," I said. "Distracted people get hurt."
I turned my head back to the window. I had spent a year dreaming about this moment. I had imagined getting close to the General's family so I could find his secrets. Now, I was finally here. I was the head of the "Viper Detail." I was the person responsible for keeping Claire safe.
It felt like a cruel joke. The General had killed my brothers—Jax and Leo. He had left me to burn in the dirt. And now, I was his employee. I was the shield for the person he loved most in the world.
"Maya, do you have the feed?" I whispered into my collar.
"I'm in," Maya's voice crackled in my earpiece. She was miles away in her secret basement, but she could see everything through the city's cameras. "Silas... I mean, Elias... you have to be careful. The General's house is a fortress. If you try to sneak into his office today, the alarms will go off before you can touch the door."
"I'm not going for the office," I whispered back. "I'm going for his heart."
The SUV pulled into a long, winding driveway. High stone walls surrounded the property, topped with cameras that spun around like hungry eyes. This was the Sterling Estate. To the rest of the world, it was a palace. To me, it was the den of a snake.
As we hopped out of the car, the front doors of the house opened. A man stepped out. He was wearing a crisp military uniform with stars on his shoulders. General Marcus Sterling.
My vision went red for a second. I wanted to lung forward. I wanted to grab him and ask him why. Why did he bomb us? Why did he lie? But I forced my hands to stay flat at my sides. I bowed my head just a little bit, acting like a humble, low-level guard.
"Thorne, isn't it?" the General said. His voice was smooth and perfect, the kind of voice that told lies on the news every night. "Madam Vera tells me you are the best guard she has. She says you have a 'special talent' for staying alive."
"I'm just lucky, sir," I said, my voice shaking with the effort of not shouting.
The General walked up to me. He was inches away. I could smell his expensive cologne. He reached out and touched the scar on my cheek with a cold finger. I felt a chill go down my spine.
"A nasty wound," he whispered. "Karsak Valley?"
I froze. Did he know? Did he recognize me? My heart felt like it stopped beating.
"I was a mechanic, sir," I lied, my voice steady. "An engine exploded in my face."
The General smiled. It was a thin, scary smile. "A mechanic. Interesting. Well, Thorne, my daughter is my life. If anything happens to her, I won't just fire you. I will make sure you disappear. Do we understand each other?"
"Yes, sir," I said.
He turned and walked back inside, leaving me standing in the sun. I felt sick. I felt like I was betraying my team just by standing there. But I had to stay. I had to wait for the right moment.
The afternoon went by slowly. I followed Claire around the house. She went to the library. She played the piano. She looked lonely. She didn't talk to the other guards. She only talked to me.
"Do you have a family, Elias?" she asked while she was sitting in the garden.
"I had brothers," I said. "They're gone now."
"I'm sorry," she said. She looked down at her hands. "My father says the world is a dangerous place. He says people want to hurt us because we're powerful. But sometimes, I think the people outside are just sad. I think they're angry because they lost things, too."
I looked at her. For a second, I didn't see the daughter of an enemy. I saw a person who felt just as trapped as I did. She lived in a cage of gold, and I lived in a cage of scars.
"Your father isn't who you think he is, Claire," I wanted to say. But I kept my mouth shut.
Suddenly, Maya's voice screamed in my ear. "Elias! Red alert! Look at the gate!"
I looked toward the front of the house. A delivery truck was pulling up. But it wasn't a normal truck. The driver wasn't wearing a uniform. He was wearing a mask.
"Get inside!" I yelled, grabbing Claire's arm.
"What? What's happening?" she cried.
"Inside! Now!"
The back of the truck opened, and four men jumped out. They weren't the Hounds. They were wearing different gear gray and white camo. These were mercenaries from the Syndicate. They weren't here to talk. They started firing.
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
Bullets tore through the rose bushes, sending petals flying like red snow. I pushed Claire through the glass doors of the house and slammed them shut.
"Upstairs! Go to the safe room!" I shouted.
I pulled out my Beretta. I was one man against four, and I didn't have armor. But I had something they didn't. I had the "Ghost" training.
I didn't hide. I moved toward them. I used the garden statues for cover. One mercenary came around a corner, and I hit him with a shoulder tackle that sounded like a car crash. I took his gun and used it to fire at the others.
Bang! Bang!
Two of them went down. The third one ducked behind a fountain. He threw something. It was a small, round ball.
"Grenade!" I dived over a stone wall just as the world turned into fire.
The explosion knocked the wind out of me. My ears were ringing. I tried to stand up, but my legs felt like jelly. Through the smoke, I saw the last mercenary. He wasn't looking for me. He was heading for the stairs. He was heading for Claire.
I forced myself to move. I crawled, then stumbled, then ran. I reached the stairs and grabbed the man's leg. We tumbled down the steps together, hitting the floor in a mess of limbs. He was strong, but I was desperate. I punched him in the throat and finished him with a strike to the temple.
I stood up, gasping for air. I was covered in dust and blood—some of it mine, some of it theirs.
"Claire?" I called out.
She came out from behind a pillar, shaking. She looked at the bodies on the floor, then at me. She didn't look scared of me anymore. She looked like she saw a hero.
"You saved me," she whispered.
Suddenly, the front door burst open. The General ran in with ten soldiers. He saw the dead men. He saw his daughter. He saw me standing there with a smoking gun.
"Thorne!" the General yelled. He ran to Claire and hugged her. Then he turned to me. His eyes were full of a strange light. "You saved her. You really saved her."
He walked up to me and put a hand on my shoulder. For a second, I thought he was going to thank me.
"I misjudged you, Elias," the General said. "You aren't just a guard. You're a warrior. And since you're so good at protecting my family, I have a special mission for you tonight."
He leaned in, his voice becoming a dark whisper.
"I need you to take this bag," he said, handing me a small, heavy briefcase. "And I need you to take it to a man in the harbor. He's going to give you a hard drive in return. It's the drive that started all this."
I took the bag. My heart was racing. This was it. The hard drive. The proof I needed to clear my name and destroy the General. He was handing it to me!
"Go," the General said. "Don't tell anyone. Not even Vera."
I ran out to a motorcycle and sped away into the night. My mind was spinning. I was going to win. I was going to get the drive and show the world the truth.
I reached the harbor. It was dark and smelled like salt and old fish. I saw a man standing under a lamp post. He was holding a small silver box.
"Do you have the bag?" the man asked.
"I have it," I said. I handed him the briefcase.
The man opened it. He didn't find money. He didn't find documents. He found a small, black raven feather.
The man's eyes went wide. "What is this?"
Suddenly, my motorcycle exploded behind me. A sniper's bullet had hit the gas tank. I was thrown through the air and landed in the freezing water of the harbor.
As I struggled to swim to the surface, I looked up through the water. On the dock, the man opened a second compartment in the briefcase. A bright red light started to blink.
It was a tracker. And it wasn't just a tracker.
Maya's voice screamed in my ear, but it was breaking up. "Silas! It's a setup! The briefcase has a GPS that's linked to the police! They think you're the one who stole the hard drive! They're calling you the 'Ghost Thief'!"
I pulled myself onto a wooden pier, dripping wet. In the distance, I heard the sirens. Dozens of them. Blue and red lights were reflecting off the water. A helicopter searchlight swung over the docks, landing right on my face.
"Elias Thorne! Stand down!" a voice boomed from the sky.
I looked at my hands. I was holding the silver box. I opened it, hoping to find the hard drive.
But there was no hard drive inside. There was only a small mirror. And written on the mirror in red lipstick were three words:
NICE TRY, SILAS.
The General knew. He had known the whole time. And now, I wasn't just a traitor. I was a thief on the run, and the whole city was closing in.